Return to Oz

[Imawitchusay]

Does anyone remeber the first film Brian Henson did w/out his father? It was Disney's Return to Oz. The film had state of the art puppetry... I loved this film..>Does anyone else remember it?


Return to Oz Movie Website:

http://www.waltdisneysreturntooz.com/

 

[sesameguy]

Yes, it was pretty well done. I think you had to approach it from a "fantasy literature" angle, the way you do with the "Lord of the Rings" series. If you were looking for a "sequel" to the 1939 "Wizard of Oz," you might have been disappointed with it. But it was good in its own right. Plus, we finally get to meet Ozma, who has an important role in the Oz saga.

 

[Speed Tracer]

"Dorothy? May I call you 'mother'? Even if it isn't so?"

Beautiful.

 

[Winslow Leach]

I remember going to Radio City Music Hall in the summer of 1985 to see The Black Cauldron. I was almost 10, and loved everything Disney and especially everything Oz (by this time I had read every Baum novel). The Black Cauldron confused me. This wasn't Snow White or Dumbo. It was much darker and louder than the typical Disney fare I knew. I remember leaving the theatre with a splitting headache. But I liked it.

Anyway, at the Music Hall, my mom bought me a Disney program that talked about the studio's two big movies for the summer of '85. One was The Black Cauldron. The other was Return to Oz. Almost as soon as I saw the colorful, bizarre pictures of Oz in that program, I instantly forgot the movie I had just seen, and remember wandering around New York all day with my nose in the program, feasting my eyes on the images of the new Oz film. On the bus ride home, I read and re-read the articles on the making of the film over and over.

Alas, I never got a chance to see Return to Oz in the theatre. I bought the paperback novelization, and it was one of the first movies I ever rented when my dad brought home our first VCR.

Like The Black Cauldron, I found Return to Oz somewhat strange. Again, this was a Disney production, but far from Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. And it certainly wasn't the classic MGM film that I watched every year. But being an Oz nut, I was entertained by the film, and watched it again and again. I especially loved Jack Pumpkinhead, as he was my favorite character from the books.

The film is based on two of Baum's sequels to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz.

If I remember correctly, both films originally had mixed reviews and both were relative failures in their initial run. It wasn't until The Little Mermaid four years later that Disney once again dominated the box office.

 

[Imawitchusay]

...

I really loved what they did in the film, the special effects for 1985 we outstanding....they dont look all 80's like most moives did back then.....Neither did the Dark Crystal for that matter...these movies were WAY before their time...

 

[anytimepally]

for that matter, the special effects in The Wizard of Oz were WAY ahead of its time in 1939 as well

 

[Winslow Leach]

I remember watching the DVD of Return to Oz recently, and thinking how well the special effects held up all these years later, particularly the Nome King and those spooky Mombi heads.

As for The Black Cauldron, I haven't seen it since that day I saw it at Radio City over 20 years ago.

 

[Xerus]

I remember seeing lots of different sequels of the Wizard of Oz.

Filmation's Journey Back to Oz, which also featured Pumpkinhead and Mombi, but in a different story.

The Oz anime series where it has some of the similiar stories from Return to Oz like the powder of life and the ornament guessing game.

And an Oz TV special where Dorothy and her new friends try to stop a mad toymaker and his giant turkey balloon which he brought to life with the famous powder of life.

 

[lael]

I really loved what they did in the film, the special effects for 1985 we outstanding....they dont look all 80's like most moives did back then.....Neither did the Dark Crystal for that matter...these movies were WAY before their time...

The Dark Crystal is a timeless classic. I just hope The Power Of The Dark Crystal will live up to the original. Me thinks CG will put the muppet factor on the back burner. *sigh*

 

[Winslow Leach]

I remember seeing lots of different sequels of the Wizard of Oz.

Filmation's Journey Back to Oz, which also featured Pumpkinhead and Mombi, but in a different story.

I have never seen this, but I used to have the LP of the soundtrack, and would play it over and over. Some of the voices were Paul Lynde, Liza Minnelli and Ethel Merman.